Selwick Hall, December ye second.
I marvel when I can make an end of writing, or when matters shall have done happening. For early this morrow, ere breakfast were well over, come a quick rap of the door, which Caitlin opened, and in come Alice Lewthwaite. Not a bit like herself looked she, with a scarf but just cast o’er her head, and all out of breath, as though she had come forth all suddenly, and had run fast and far. We had made most of us an end of eating, but were yet sat at the table.
“Alice, dear heart, what aileth thee?” saith Mother, and rose up.
“Lady Lettice, do pray you tell me,” panteth she, “if you have seen or heard aught of our Blanche?”
“Nay, Alice, in no wise,” saith Mother.
“Lack the day!” quoth she, “then our fears be true.”
“What fears, dear heart?” I think Father, and Mother, and Aunt Joyce, asked at her all together.
“I would as lief say nought, saving to my Lady, and Mistress Joyce,” she saith: so they bare her away, and what happed at that time I cannot say, saving that Father himself took Alice home, and did seem greatly concerned at her trouble. Well, this was scantly o’er ere a messenger come with a letter to Mother, whereon she had no sooner cast her eyes than she brake forth with a cry of pleasure. Then, Father desiring to know what it were, she told us all that certain right dear and old friends of hers, the which she had not seen of many years, were but now at the Salutation Inn at Ambleside, and would fain come on and tarry a season here if it should suit with Mother’s conveniency to have them.
“And right fain should I be,” saith she; and so said Father likewise.
Then Mother told us who were these her old friends: to wit, Sir Robert Stafford and his lady, which was of old time one Mistress Dulcibel Fenton, of far kin unto my Lady Norris, that was Mother’s mistress of old days at Minster Lovel: and moreover, one Mistress Martin, a widow that is sister unto Sir Robert, and was Mother’s fellow when she served my dear-worthy Lady of Surrey. So Father saith he would ride o’er himself to Ambleside, and give them better welcome than to send but a letter back: and Mother did desire her most loving commendations unto them all, and bade us all be hasteful and help to make ready the guest-chambers. So right busy were we all the morrow, and no time for no tales of no sort: but in the afternoon, when all was done, Aunt Joyce had us three up into her chamber, and bade us sit and listen.
“For it is a sorrowful story I have to tell,” saith she: and added, as though she spake to herself,—“ay, and it were best got o’er ere Dulcie cometh.”
So we sat all in the window-seat, Milly in the midst, and Aunt Joyce afore us in a great cushioned chair.
“When I was of your years, Milly,” saith she, “I dwelt—where I now do at Minster Lovel, with my father and my sister Anstace. Our mother was dead, and our baby brother Walter; and of us there had never been more. But we had two cousins—one Aubrey Louvaine, the son of our mother’s sister,—you wot who he is,” she saith, and smiled: “and the other, the son of our father’s sister dwelt at Oxford with his mother, a widow, and his name was—Leonard Norris.”
The name was so long a-coming that I marvelled if she meant to tell us.
“I do not desire to make my tale longer than need is, dear hearts,” pursueth she, “and therefore I will but tell you that in course of time, with assent of my father and his mother, my cousin Leonard and I were troth-plight. I loved him, methinks, as well as it was in woman to love man: and—I thought he loved me. I never knew a man who had such a tongue to cajole a woman’s heart. He could talk in such a fashion that thou shouldst feel perfectly assured that he loved thee with all his heart, and none but thee: and ere the sun had set, he should have given the very same certainty to Nan at the farm, and to Mall down in the glen. I believe he did rarely make love to so little as one woman at once. He liked—he once told your father so much—a choice of strings for his bow. But of all this, at first, lost in my happy love, I knew nothing. My love to him was so true and perfect, that the very notion that his could be lesser than so never entered mine head. It was Anstace who saw the clouds gathering before any other—Anstace, to whom, in her helpless suffering, God gave a strange power of reading hearts. There came a strange maiden on the scene—a beautiful maiden, with fair eyes and gleaming hair—and Leonard’s heart was gone from me for ever. Gone!—had it ever come? I cannot tell. May-be some little corner of his heart was mine, once on a time—I doubt if I had more. He had every corner and every throb of mine. Howbeit, when this maid—”
“How was she called, Aunt Joyce?” saith Milly, in rather an hard voice.
Aunt Joyce did not make answer for a moment: and, looking up on her, I saw drawn brows and flushed cheeks.
“Never mind that, Milly. I shall call her Mary. It was not her name. Well, when this maid first came to visit us, and I brought her above to my sister, that as ye know might never arise from the couch whereon she lay—I something marvelled to see how quick from her face to mine went Anstace’ eyes, and back again to her. I knew, long after, what had been her thought. She had no faith in Leonard, and she guessed quick enough that this face should draw him away from me. She tried to prepare me as she saw it coming. But I was blind and deaf. I shut mine eyes tight, and put my fingers in mine ears. I would not face the cruel truth. For Mary herself, I am well assured she meant me no ill, nor did she see that any ill was wrought till all were o’er. She did but divert her with Leonard’s words, caring less for him than for them. She was vain, and loved flatteries, and he saw it, and gave her them by the bushel. She was a child laking with a firebrand, and never knew what it were until she burnt her fingers. And at last, maids, mine eyes were forced open. Leonard himself told me, and in so many words, what I had refused to hear from others,—that he loved well enough the gold that was like to be mine, but he did not love me. There were bitter words on both sides, but mine were bitterest. And so, at last, we parted. I could show you the flag on which he stood when I saw his face for the last time—the last, until I saw it yester-morrow. Others had seen him, and knew him not, through the changes of years. Even your father did not know him, though they had been bred up well-nigh as brothers. But mine eyes were sharper. I had not borne that face in mine heart, and seen it in my dreams, for all these years, that I should look on him and not know it. I knew the look in his eyes, the poise of his head, the smile on his lips, too well—too well! I reckon that between that day and this, a thousand women may have had that smile upon them. But I thought of the day when I had it—when it was the one light of life to me—for I had not then beheld the Light of the World. Milly, didst thou think me cruel yester-morrow?—cold, and hard, and stern? Ah, men do think a woman so,—and women at times likewise—think her words hard, when she has to crush her heart down ere she can speak any word at all—think her eyes icy cold, when behind them are a storm of passionate tears that must not be shed then, and she has to keep the key hard turned lest they burst the door open. Ah, young maids, you look upon me as who should say, that I am an old woman from whom such words are strange to you. They be fit only for a young lass’s lips, forsooth? Childre, you wis not yet that the hot love of youth is nought to be compared to the yearning love of age,—that the maid that loveth a man whom she first met a month since cannot bear the rushlight unto her that has shrined him in her heart for thirty years.”
Aunt Joyce tarried a moment, and drew a long breath. Then she saith in a voice that was calmer and lower—
“Anstace told me I loved not the Leonard that was, but only he that should have been. But I have prayed God day and night, and I will go on yet praying, that the man of my love may be the Leonard that yet shall be,—that some day he may turn back to God and me, and remember the true heart that poured all that love upon him. If it be so, let the Lord order how, and where, and when. For if I may know that it is, when I come into His presence above, I can finish my journey here without the knowledge.”
“But it were better to know it, Aunt Joyce?” saith Helen tenderly. Methinks the tale had stirred her heart very much.
“It were happier, Nelly,” quoth Aunt Joyce softly. “God knoweth whether it were best. If it be so, He will give it me.—And now is the hardest part of my tale to tell. For after a while, Milly, this—Mary—came to see what Leonard meant, and methinks she came about the same time to the certainty that she loved one who was not Leonard. When he had parted from me he sought her, and there was much bitterness betwixt them. At the last she utterly denied him, and shut the door betwixt him and her: for the which he never forgave her, but at a later time, when in the persecutions under King Henry she came into his power, he used her as cruelly as he might then dare to go. I reckon, had it been under Queen Mary, he should have been content with nought less than her blood. But it pleased the good Lord to deliver her, he getting him entangled in some briars of politics that you should little care to hear: and so when she was freed forth of prison, he was shut up therein.”
“Then, Aunt Joyce, is he a Papist?” saith Helen, of a startled fashion.
“Ay, Nell, he is a black Papist. When we all came forth of Babylon, he tarried therein.”
“And what came of her you called Mary, if it please you, Aunt?” quoth I.
“She was wed to one that dwelt at a distance from those parts, Edith,” saith Aunt Joyce, in the constrained tone wherein she had begun her story. “And sithence then have I heard at times of Leonard, though never meeting him,—but alway as of one that was journeying from bad to worse—winning hearts and then breaking them. Since Queen Elizabeth came in, howbeit, heard I never word of him at all: and I knew not if he were in life or no, till I set eyes on his face yesterday.”
We were all silent till Aunt Joyce saith gently—
“Well, Milly,—should we have been more kinder if we had let thee alone to break thine heart, thinkest?”
“It runneth not to a certainty that mine should be broke, because others were,” mutters Milly stubbornly.
“Thou countest, then, that he which had been false to a thousand maids should be true to the one over?” saith Aunt Joyce, with a pitying smile. “Well, such a thing may be possible,—once in a thousand times. Hardly oftener, methinks, my child. But none is so blind as she that will not see. I must leave the Lord to open thine eyes,—for I wis He had to do it for me.”
And Aunt Joyce rose up and went away.
“I marvel who it were she called Mary,” said I.
“Essay not to guess, dear heart,” saith Helen quickly. “’Tis plain Aunt Joyce would not have us know.”
“Why, she told us, or as good,” quoth Milisent, in that bitter fashion she hath had to-day and yesterday. “Said she not, at the first, that ‘it were well to get the tale o’er ere Dulcie should come’? ’Tis my Lady Stafford, of course.”
“I am not so sure of that,” saith Helen, in a low voice: and methought she had guessed at some other, but would not say out (Note 1). “I think we were better to go down now.”
So down went we all to the great chamber, and there found, with Mother, Mistress Lewthwaite, that was, as was plain to see, in a mighty taking (much agitated).
“Dear heart, Lady Lettice, but I never looked for this!” she crieth, wiping of her eyes with her kerchief. “I wis we have been less stricter than you in breeding up our maids: but to think that one of them should bring this like of a misfortune on us! For Blanche is gone to be undone, of that am I sure. Truth to tell, yonder Sir Francis Everett so took me with his fine ways and goodly looks and comely apparel and well-chosen words,—ay, and my master too—that we never thought to caution the maids against him. Now, it turns out that Alice had some glint of what were passing: but she never betrayed Blanche, thinking it should not be to her honour; and me,—why, I ne’er so much as dreamed of any ill in store.”
“What name said you?” quoth Mother, that was trying to comfort her.
“Everett,” saith she; “Sir Francis Everett, he said his name were, of Woodbridge, in the county of Suffolk, where he hath a great estate, and spendeth a thousand pound by the year. And a well-looked man he was, not o’er young, belike, but rare goodly his hair fair and his eyen shining grey,—somewhat like to yours, my Lady.”
Helen and I looked on each other, and I saw the same thought was in both our minds. And looking then upon Mother, I reckoned it had come to her likewise. At Milisent I dared not look, though I saw Helen glance at her.
“And now,” continueth Mistress Lewthwaite, “here do I hear that at Grasmere Farm he gave out himself to be one Master Tregarvon, of Devon; and up in Borrowdale, he hath been playing the gallant to two or three maids by the name of Sir Thomas Brooke of Warwickshire: and the saints know which is his right one. He’s a bad one, Lady Lettice! And after all, here is your Mistress Bess, she saith she is as sure as that her name is Wolvercot, that no one of all these names is his own. She reckons him to be some young gentleman that she once wist, down in the shires,—marry, what said she was his name, now? I cannot just call to mind. She should ne’er have guessed at him, quoth she, but she saw him do somewhat this young man were wont to do, and were something singular therein—I mind not what it were. Dear heart, but this fray touching our Blanche hath drove aught else out of mine head! But Mistress Bess said he were a bad one, and no mistake.”
“Is Blanche gone off with him, Mistress Lewthwaite?” saith Helen.
“That is right what she is, Nell, and ill luck go with her,” quoth Mistress Lewthwaite: “for it will, that know I. God shall never bless no undutiful childre,—of that am I well assured.”
“Nay, friend, curse not your own child!” saith Mother, with a little shudder.
“Eh, poor lass, I never meant to curse her,” quoth she: “she’ll get curse enough from him she’s gone withal. She has made her bed, and she must lie on it. And a jolly hard one it shall be, by my troth!”
Here come Cousin Bess and Aunt Joyce into the chamber, and a deal more talk was had of them all: but at the last Mistress Lewthwaite rose up, and went away. But just ere she went, saith she to Milisent and me, that were sat together of one side of the chamber—
“Eh, my maids, but you twain should thank God and your good father and mother! for if you had been bred up with less care, this companion, whatso his name be, should have essayed to beguile you as I am a Cumberland woman. A pair of comely young lasses like you should have been a great catch for him, I reckon.”
“Ah, Mistress mine,” saith Cousin Bess, “when lasses take as much care of their own selves as their elders of them, we shall catch larks by the sky falling, I reckon.”
“You are right, Mistress Bess,” saith she: and so away hied she.
No sooner was Mistress Lewthwaite gone, than Mother saith,—“Bess, who didst thou account this man to be? Mistress Lewthwaite saith thou didst guess it to be one thou hadst known down in the shires, but she had forgat the name.”
I saw Cousin Bess look toward Aunt Joyce with a question in her eyes: and if ever I read English in eyes, what Aunt’s said was,—“Have a care!” Then Cousin Bess saith, very quiet—
“It was a gentleman in Oxford town, Cousin Lettice, that I was wont to hear of from our Nell when she dwelt yonder.”
“Oh, so?” saith Mother: and thus the matter ended.
But at after, in the even, when Father and Aunt Joyce and I were by ourselves a little season in the hall, I heard Aunt Joyce say, very soft—
“Aubrey, didst thou give her the name?”
Methought Father shook his head.
“I dared not, Joyce,” saith he. “She was so sore troubled touching—the other matter.”
“I thought so,” quoth Aunt. “Then I will beware that I utter it not.”
“But Edith knows,” answereth Father in a low voice.
“The maids all know,” saith she. “I did not reckon thou wouldest keep it from her.”
“I should not, but,”—and Father paused. “Thou wist, Joyce, how she setteth her heart on all things.”
“I am afeared, Aubrey, she shall have to know sooner or later. Mistress Lewthwaite did all but utter it to her this morning, only I thank God her memory failed her just at the right minute.”
“We were better to tell her than that,” saith Father, and leaned his head upon his hand as though he took thought.
Then Mother and Helen came in, and no more was said.
Selwick Hall, December the fourth.
I had no time to write yestereven, for we were late abed, it being nigh nine o’ the clock ere we came up; and all the day too busy. My Lady Stafford and Sir Robert and Mistress Martin did return with Father—the which I set not down in his right place at my last writing,—and yesterday we gat acquaint and showed them the vicinage and such like. As to-morrow, Mother shall carry them to wait on my Lord Dilston.
Sir Robert Stafford is a personable gentleman, much of Father’s years; his nose something high, yet not greatly so, and his hair and beard now turning grey, but have been dark. Mistress Martin his sister (that when Mother wist her was Mistress Grissel Stafford) is much like to him in her face, but some years the younger of the twain, though her hair be the greyer. My Lady Stafford, howbeit, hath not a grey hair of her head, and hath more ruddiness of her face than Mistress Martin, being to my thought the comelier dame of the twain. Mother, nathless, saith that Mistress Grissel was wont to be the fairer when all were maids, and that she hath wist much trouble, the which hath thus consumed her early lovesomeness. For her husband, Captain Martin, that was an officer of Calais, coming home after that town was lost in Queen Mary’s time, was attaint of heresy and taken of Bishop Bonner, he lying long in prison, and should have been brent at the stake had not Queen Mary’s dying (under God’s gracious ordering) saved him therefrom. And all these months was Mistress Martin in dread disease, never knowing from one week to another what should be the end thereof. And indeed he lived not long after, but two or three years. Sir Robert Stafford, on the other part, was a wiser man; for no sooner was it right apparent, on Queen Mary’s incoming, how matters should turn, than he and his dame and their two daughters gat them over seas and dwelt in foreign parts all the days that Queen Mary reigned. And in Dutchland (Germany) were both their daughters wedded, the one unto a noble of that country, by name the Count of Rothenthal, and the other unto a priest, an Englishman that took refuge also in those parts, by name Master Francis Digby, that now hath a living in Somerset.
Medoubteth if Mother be told who Sir Edwin Tregarvon were. Milly ’bideth yet in the sulks, and when she shall come thereout will I not venture to guess. Alice Lewthwaite come over this afternoon but for a moment, on her way to her aunt’s, Mistress Rigg, and saith no word is yet heard of their Blanche, whom her father saith he will leather while he can lay on if she do return, while her mother is all for killing the fatted calf and receiving her back with welcome.
Selwick Hall, December the v.
This morrow we set forth for Lord’s Island, a goodly company—to wit, Father, and Mother, and Sir Robert and my Lady Stafford, and Mistress Martin, and Milisent, and me. Too many were we for Adam to row, and thought to take old Matthias, had not Robin Lewthwaite chanced on us the last minute, and craved leave to take an oar, saying it should be a jolly pleasance for him to spend the day on Lord’s Island. So Father took the second oar, and Adam steered, and all we got well across, thanks to God. We landed, Father gave his hand to my Lady Stafford, and Sir Robert to Mother, and Robin, pulling a face at Milly and me (for I wis well he had liever have been with us), his to Mistress Martin.
“Well, Edith,” saith Milly, the pleasantest she hath spoken of late, “I reckon I must be thy cavaliero.”
“Will you have my cap, Milisent?” saith Robin, o’er his shoulder.
“Thanks, I reckon I shall manage without,” quoth she.
“Well, have a care you demean yourself as a cavaliero should,” saith he. “Tell her she is the fairest maid in all the realm, and you shall die o’ despair an’ you get not a glance from her sweet eyes.”
“Nay, I’ll leave that for you,” saith Milly.
“Good. I will do mine utmost to mind it the next opportunity,” quoth Robin.
So, with mirth, come we up to Dilston Hall.
My Lord was within, said the old serving-man, and so likewise were Mistress Jane and Mistress Cicely: so he led us across the hall, that is set with divers coloured stones, of a fashion they have in Italy, and into a pleasant chamber, where Mistress Cicely was sat at her frame a-work, and rose up right lovingly to welcome us. Mistress Jane, said she, was in the garden: but my Lord come in the next minute, and was right pleasant unto us after his sad and bashful fashion, for never saw I a man like him, as bashful as any maid. Then Mistress Jane come anon, and bare us—to wit, Milisent and me—away to her own chamber, where she gave us sweet cakes and muscadel; and Mistress Cicely came too. And a jolly time should we have had, had it not come into Mistress Cicely’s head to ask at us if it were true that Blanche Lewthwaite was gone away with some gallant. I had need to say Ay, for Milisent kept her mouth close shut.
“And who were he?” quoth Mistress Jane. I answered that so far as we heard he had passed by divers names, all about this vicinage: but the name whereby he had called himself at Mere Lea (which is Master Lewthwaite’s) was Everett.
“I warrant you, Jane,” saith Mistress Cicely, “’tis the same Everett Farmer Benson was so wroth with, for making up to his Margaret. He said if ever he came nigh his house again, he should go thence with a bullet more than he brought. A man past his youth, was he, Edith, with fair shining hair—no grey in it—and mighty sweet spoken?”
“Ay, that is he,” said I, “or I mistake, Madam.”
“Dear heart, but what an ill one must he be!” quoth Mistress Jane. “Why he made old Nanny’s grand-daughter Doll reckon he meant to wed her, and promised to give her a silver chain for her neck this next Sunday!”
All this while sat Milisent still and spake never a word. I gat discourse turned so soon as ever I might. Then after a little while went we down to hall, and good mirth was had of the young gentlewomen with Robin and me: but all the while Milisent very still, so that at last Mistress Cicely noted it, and asked her if her head ached. She said ay: and she looked like it. So, soon after came we thence, and crossed the lake again, and so home. Milly yet very silent all the even: not as though she sulked, as of late, but rather as though she meditated right sadly.
Selwick Hall, December ye vii.
This morrow, I being in Aunt Joyce’s chamber, helping her to lay by the new-washed linen, come Milisent in very softly.
“Aunt Joyce,” she saith, “I would fain have speech of you.”
“Shall I give thee leave (go away and leave you), Milly?” said I, arising, for I was knelt of the floor, before the bottom drawer.
“Nay, Edith,” she makes answer: “thou knowest my faults, and it is but meet thou shouldst hear my confession.”
Her voice choked somewhat, and Aunt Joyce saith lovingly, “Dost think, then, thou hast been foolish, dear child?”
“I can hardly tell about foolish, Aunt,” saith she, casting down her eyes, “but methinks I have been sinful. Will you forgive me mine hard words and evil deeds?”
“Ay, dear heart, right willingly. And I shall not gainsay thee, Milly,” saith Aunt Joyce, sadly: “for ‘the thought of foolishness is sin,’ and God calls many a thing sin whereof we men think but too lightly. Yet, bethink thee that ‘if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father.’ Now, dear heart, if thou wilt be ruled by me, thou wilt ‘arise and go to thy father’ and thy mother, and say to them right as did the prodigal, that thou hast sinned against Heaven and in their sight. I think neither of them is so much angered as sorrowful and pitying: yet, if there be any anger in them, trust me, that were the way to disarm it. Come back, Milly—first to God, and then to them. Thou shalt find fatherly welcome from either.”
Milly still hid her face.
“Aunt Joyce,” she saith, “I dare not say I have come back to God, for I have been doubting this morrow if I were ever near Him. But I think I have come. So now I may go to Father and Mother.”
Aunt Joyce kissed her lovingly, and carried her off. Of course I know not what happed betwixt Father and Mother, and Milly, but I know that Milly looks a deal happier, and yet sadder (graver), than she hath done of many days: and that both Father and Mother be very tender unto her, as to one that had been lost and is found.
Note 1. Helen guessed rightly. As the readers of “Lettice Eden” will know, the “Mary” of the tale was her mother.
Chapter Six.
Christmas Cheer.
“Then opened wide the baron’s hall
To vassal, tenant, serf, and all;
All hailed with uncontrolled delight,
And general voice, the happy night
That to the cottage, as the crown,
Brought tidings of salvation down.”
Scott.
(In Edith’s handwriting.)
Selwick Hall, December ye x.
Here have I been a-thinking I should scantly write a word when my month was come, and already, with but ten days thereof, have I filled half as much paper as either Helen or Milisent. But in good sooth, I do trust the next ten days shall not be so full of things happening as these last. Nathless, I do love to have things happen, after a fashion: but I would have them to be alway pleasant things. And when things happen, they be so oft unpleasant.
Now, if one might order one’s own life, methinks it should be a right pleasant thing. For I reckon I should not go a-fooling, like as some lasses do. Mine head is not all stuffed with gallants, nor yet with velvet and gold. But I would love to be great. Not great like a duchess, just a name and no more: but to make a name for myself, and to have folks talk of me, how good and how clever I were. That is what I would fain be thought—good and clever. I take no care to be thought fair, nor in high place; howbeit, I desire not to be ugly nor no lower down than I am. But I am quite content with mine own place, only I feel within me that I could do great things.
And how can a woman do great things, without she be rare high in place, such like as the Queen’s Majesty, or my Lady Duchess of Suffolk? Or how could I ever look to do great things, here in Derwent dale? Oh, I do envy our Wat and Ned, by reason they can go about the world and o’er the seas, and make themselves famous.
And, somehow, in a woman’s life everything seems so little. ’Tis just cooking and eating; washing linen and soiling of it; going to bed and rising again. Always doing things and then undoing them, and alway the same things over and over again. It seems as if nought would ever stay done. If one makes a new gown, ’tis but that it may be worn out, and then shall another be wanted. I would the world could give o’er going on, and every thing getting worn out and done with.
Other folks do not seem to feel thus. I reckon Helen never does, not one bit. Some be so much easier satisfied than other. I count them the happiest.
I cannot tell how it is, but I do never feel satisfied. ’Tis as though there were wings within me, that must ever of their nature be stretching upward and onward. Where should they end, an’ they might go forward? Would there be any end? Can one be satisfied, ever?
I believe Anstace and Helen are satisfied, but then ’tis their nature to be content with things as they be. I do not know about Mother and Aunt Joyce. I misdoubt if it be altogether their nature. But then neither do they seem always satisfied. Father doth so: and his nature is high enough. I think I shall ask Father. As for Cousin Bess, an’ I were to ask at her, she should conceive me never a whit. ’Tis her nature to cook and darn and scour, and to look complacently on her cake and her mended hole and her cleaned chamber, and never trouble herself to think that they shall lack doing o’er again to-morrow. Chambers are like to need cleansing, and what were women made for save to keep them clean? That is Cousin Bess, right out. For Master Stuyvesant, methinks he is right the other way, and rather counts the world a dirty place and full of holes, that there shall be no good in neither cleansing nor mending. And I look not on matters in that light. Methinks it were better to cleanse the chamber, if only one could keep it from being dirtied at after. I shall see what Father saith.
Selwick Hall, December the xii.
Yester even, as we were sat in the great chamber,—there was Mother and Helen at their wheels, and Aunt Joyce and my Lady Stafford a-sewing, and Mistress Martin and Milisent and me at the broidery,—and Father had but just beat Sir Robert in a game of the chess, and Mynheer, one foot upon his other knee, was deep in a great book which thereon rested,—and fresh logs were thrown of the fire by Kate, which sent forth upward a shower of pleasant sparkles, and methought as I glanced around the chamber, that all looked rare pleasant and comfortable, and we ought to thank God therefore. When all had been silent a short while, out came I with my question, well-nigh ere I myself wist it were out—
“Father, are you satisfied?”
“A mighty question, my maid,” saith he,—while Helen looked up in surprise, and Aunt Joyce and Mistress Martin and Milisent fell a-laughing. “With what? The past, the present, or the future?” quoth Father.
“With things, Father,” said I. “With life and every thing.”
“Ah, Edith, hast thou come to that?” saith my Lady Stafford: and she exchanged smiles with Mother.
“Daughter,” Father makes answer, “methinks no man is ever satisfied with life, until he be first satisfied with God. The furthest he can go in that direction, is not to think if he be satisfied or no. A man may be well pleased with lesser things: but to be satisfied, that can he not.”
“‘Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again,’” quoth Mother, softly.
“Ay,” saith Sir Robert; “and wit you, Mistress Edith, what cometh at times to men adrift of the ocean, when all their fresh water is spent?”
“Why, surely, they should find water in plenty in the sea, Sir,” said I.
“Right so do they,” saith he: “and ’tis a quality of the sea-water, that if a man athirst doth once taste the same, his thirst becometh so great that he drinketh thereof again and again, the thirst worsening with every draught, until at last it drives him mad.”
“An apt image of the pleasures of this world,” answers Father. “Ah, how is all nature as God’s picture-book, given to help His dull childer over their tasks!”
“But, Father,”—said I, and stayed.
“Well, my maid?” he answers of his kindly fashion.
“I cry you mercy, Father, if I speak foolishly; but it seems me that pious folk be not alway satisfied. They make as much fume as other folk when things go as they would not have them.”
“The angels do not so, I reckon,” saith Mynheer, a-looking up.
“We are not angels yet,” quoth Father, a little drily. “Truth, my maid: and we ought to repent thereof, seeing such practices but too oft cause the enemy to blaspheme, and put stumbling-blocks in the way of weak brethren. Ay, and from what we read in God’s Word, it should seem as though all murmuring and repining—not sorrowing, mark thou; but murmuring—went for far heavier sin in His eyes than it doth commonly in ours. We count it a light matter if we grumble when things go awry, and matters do seem as if they were bent on turning forth right as we would not have them. Let us remember, for ourselves, that such displeaseth the Lord. He reckons it unbelief and mistrust. ‘How long,’ saith He unto Moses, ‘will this people provoke Me? and how long will it be ere they believe Me?’ Howbeit, as for our neighbours, we need not judge them. And indeed, such matters depend much on men’s complexions (Note 1), and some find it a deal easier to control them than other. And after all, Edith, there is a sense wherein no man can ever be fully satisfied in this life. We were meant to aspire; and if we were entirely content with present things, then should we grovel. To submit cheerfully is one thing: to be fully gratified, so that no desire is left, is an other. We shall not be that, methinks, till we reach Heaven.”
“Shall we so, even there?” saith Sir Robert. “It hath alway seemed to me that when Diogenes did define his gods as ‘they that had no wants,’ he pointed to a very miserable set of creatures. Is it not human nature that the thing present shall fall short of the thing prospective?”
“The in posse is better than the in esse?” saith Father. “Well, it should seem so, in this dispensation. But how, in the next world, our powers may be extended, and our souls in some degree suffer change, that we can be fully satisfied and yet be alway aspiring—I reckon we cannot now understand. I only gather from Scripture that it shall be thus. You and I know very little, Robin, of what shall be in Heaven.”
“Ah, true,—true!” saith Sir Robert.
“It hath struck me at times,” saith Father, “that while it may seem strange to the young and eager soul, yet it is better understood as one grows older,—how the account of Heaven given us in Scripture is nearly all in negations. God and ourselves are the two matters positive. The rest are nays: there shall be no pain, no crying, no sorrow, no night, no death, no curse. And though youth would oft have it all yea, yet nay suits age the better. An old man and weary feels the thought of active bliss at times too much for him. It wearies him to think of perpetual singing and constant flying. It is rest he needs—it is peace.”
“Well, Father,” saith Milisent, looking up, “I hope it is not wicked of me, but I never did enjoy the prospect of sitting of a cloud and singing Hallelujah for ever and ever.”
“Right what I was wont to think at thy years, Milly,” saith Mother, a-laughing.
“Dear hearts,” saith Father, “there is in God’s Word a word for the smallest need of every one of us, if we will only take the pain to search and find it there. ‘They had no rest day neither night,’ (Cranmer’s version of Revelations chapter four verse 8)—that is for the eager, active soul that longs to be up and doing. And ‘they rest from their labours,’—that is for the weary heart that is too tired for rapture.”
“Yet doth not that latter class of texts, think you,” saith Sir Robert, “refer mainly to the rest of the body in the grave?”
“Well, it may be so,” answers Father: “yet, look you, the rest of the grave must be something that will rest us.”
“What is thy notion, Aubrey,” saith Aunt Joyce, “of the state of the soul betwixt death and resurrection?”
“My notion, Joyce,” saith Father, “is that Scripture giveth us no very plain note thereon. I conclude, therefore, that it shall be time to know when we come to it. This only do I see—that all the passages which speak thereof as ‘sleep,’ ‘forgetfulness,’ and the like, be in the Old Testament: and all those—nay, let me correct myself—most of those which speak thereof as of a condition of conscious bliss, ‘being with Christ,’ and so, are in the New. There I find the matter: and there, under your good pleasure, will I leave it.”
“Well, that should seem,” quoth Aunt Joyce, “as if the condition of souls had been altered by the coming of our Lord.”
“By His death, rather, as methinks, if so be. It may be so. I dare not be positive either way.”
“Has it never seemed strange to you, Louvaine,” saith Sir Robert, “how little we be told in God’s Word touching all those mysteries whereon men’s minds will ever be busying themselves—to all appearance, so long as the world lasts? This matter of our talk—the origin of evil—free-will and sovereign grace—and the like. Why are we told no more?”
“Why,” saith Father, with that twinkle in his eyes which means fun, “I am one of the meaner intelligences of the universe, and I wis not. If you can find any whither the Angel Gabriel, you may ask at him if he can untie your knots.”
“Now, Aubrey, that is right what mads me!” breaks in Aunt Joyce. “Sir Robert asks why we be told no more, and thine answer is but to repeat that we be told no more. Do, man, give a plain answer to a plain question.”
“Nay, now thou aft like old Lawyer Pearson?” quoth Father. “‘I wis not, Master,’ saith the witness. ‘Ay, but will you swear?’ saith he. ‘Why,’ quoth the witness, ‘how can I swear when I wis not?’ ‘Nay, but you must swear one way or an other,’ saith he. Under thy leave, Joyce, I do decline to swear either way, seeing I wis not.”
Aunt Joyce gives a little stamp of her foot. “What on earth is the good of men, when they wit no more than women?” quoth she: whereat all laughed.
“Ah, some women have great wits,” saith Father.
“Give o’er thy mocking, Aubrey!” answers she. “Tell us plain, what notion thou hast, and be not so strict tied to chapter and verse.”
“Of what worth shall then be my notions? Well,” saith Father, “I have given them on the one matter. As for the origin of evil, I find the origin of mine evil in mine own heart, and no further can I get except to Satan.”
“Ay, but I would fain reach over Satan,” saith she.
“That shall we not do without Satan overreaching us,” quoth Father. “Well, then—as to free-will and grace, I find both. ‘Whosoever will, take of the water of life,’—and ‘Yet will ye not come unto Me that ye might have life.’ But also I find, ‘No man can come to Me, except the Father draw him;’ and that faith cometh ‘Not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.’”
“Come, tarry not there!” saith Aunt Joyce. “How dost thou reconcile them?”
“Why, I don’t reconcile them,” quoth he.
“Ay, but do!” she makes answer.
“Well,” saith he, “if thou wilt come and visit me, Joyce, an hundred years hence, at the sign of the Burnt-Sacrifice, in Amethyst Lane, in the New Jerusalem, I will see if I can do it for thee then.”
“Aubrey Louvaine!” saith Aunt Joyce, “thou art—”
“Not yet there,” he answers. “I am fully aware of it.”
“The wearifullest tease ever I saw, when it liketh thee!” saith she.
“Dost thou know, Joyce,” quoth Mother, laughing merrily, “I found out that afore I was wed. He did play right cruelly on mine eagerness once or twice.”
“Good lack! then why didst thou wed him?” saith Aunt Joyce.
Mother laughed at this, and Father made a merry answer, which turned the discourse to other matter, and were not worth to set down. So we gat not back to our sad talk, but all ended with mirth.
This morrow come o’er Robin Lewthwaite, with a couple of rare fowl and his mother’s loving commendations for Mother. He saith nothing is yet at all heard of their Blanche, and he shook his head right sorrowfully when I asked at him if he thought aught should be. It seemed so strange a thing to see Robin sorrowful.
Selwick Hall, December ye xvi.
This morrow, my Lady Stafford, Aunt Joyce, and I, were sat at our work alone in the great chamber. Milly was gone with Mother a-visiting poor folk, and Sir Robert and Mistress Martin, with Helen for guide, were away towards Thirlmere,—my Lady Stafford denying to go withal, by reason she had an ill rheum catched yesterday amongst the snowy lanes. All at once, up looks my Lady, and she saith—
“Joyce, what is this I heard yestereven of old Mall Crewdson, touching one Everett, or Tregarvon—she wist not rightly which his name were—that hath done a deal of mischief in these parts of late? What manner of mischief?—for old Mary was very mysterious. May-be I do not well to ask afore Edith?”
“Ay, Dulcie, well enough,” saith Aunt Joyce, sadly, “for Edith knows the worst she can already. And if you knew the worst you could—”
“Why, what is it?” quoth she.
“Leonard,” saith Aunt Joyce, curtly.
“Leonard!” Every drop of blood seemed gone out of my Lady’s face. “I thought he was dead, years gone.”
“So did not I,” Aunt Joyce made low answer.
“No, I wis thou never didst,” saith my Lady, tenderly. “So thy love is still alive, Joyce? Poor heart!”
“My heart is,” she saith. “As for love, it is poor stuff if it can die.”
“There is a deal of poor stuff abroad, then,” quoth her Ladyship. “In very deed, so it is. So he is yet at his old work?”
Aunt Joyce only bent her head.
“Well, it were not possible to wish he had kept to the new,” pursueth she. “I do fear there were some brent in Smithfield, that had been alive at this day but for him. But ever since Queen Mary died hath he kept him so quiet, that in very deed I never now reckoned him amongst the living. Where is he now?”
“God wot,” saith Aunt Joyce, huskily.
My Lady was silent awhile: and then she saith—
“Well, may-be better so. But Joyce, doth Lettice know?”
“That Tregarvon were he? Not without Aubrey hath told her these last ten days: and her face saith not so.”
“No, it doth not,” my Lady makes answer. “But Sir Aubrey wist, then? His face is not wont to talk unless he will.”
“In no wise,” saith Aunt Joyce. “Ay, Dulcibel; I had to tell him.”
“Thou?” saith my Lady, pityingly.
“None knew him but me,” made she answer, and her voice grew very troubled. “Not even Aubrey, nor Lettice. Bess guessed at him after awhile, but not till she had seen him divers times. But for me one glimpse was enough.”
Aunt Joyce’s work was still now.
“Hadst thou surmised aforetime that it were he?”
Aunt Joyce shook her head.
“No need for surmising, Dulcie,” she said. “If I were laid in my grave for a year and a day, I should know his step upon the mould above me.”
“My poor Joyce!” softly quoth my Lady Stafford. “Even God hath no stronger word than ‘passing the love of women.’ Yet a woman’s love lasts not out to that in most cases.”
“Her heart lasts not out, thou meanest,” saith Aunt Joyce. “Hearts are weak, Dulcie, but love is immortal.”
“And hast thou still hope—for him, Joyce?” answereth my Lady. “I lost the last atom of mine, years gone.”
“Hope of his ultimate salvation? Ay—as long as life lasts. I shall give over hoping for it when I see it.”
“But,” saith my Lady slowly, as though she scarce liked to say the same, “how if thou never wert to see it?”
“‘Between the stirrup and the ground,
Mercy I sought, mercy I found.’
“Thou wist that epitaph, Dulcie, on him that lost life by a fall from the saddle. My seeing it were comfort, but no necessity. I could go on hoping that God had seen it.”
Aunt Joyce arose and left the chamber. Then saith my Lady Stafford to me—
“There goes a strong soul. There be women such as she: but they are not to be picked, like blackberries, off every bramble. Edith, young folks are apt to think love a mere matter of youth and of matrimony. They cannot make a deeper blunder. The longer love lasts, the stronger it groweth.”
“Always, my Lady?” said I.
“Ay,” saith she. “That is, if it be love.”
We wrought a while without more talk: when suddenly saith my Lady Stafford:—
“Edith, didst thou see this Tregarvon, or how he called himself?”
“Ay, Madam,” said I. “He made up to me one morrow, when my sister Milisent and I were on Saint Hubert’s Isle in the mere yonder, and I was sat, a-drawing, of a stone.”
“Ay so?” quoth she, with some earnestness in her voice. “And what then?”
“I think he took not much of me, Madam,” said I.
My Lady Stafford smiled, yet methought somewhat pensively.
“May I wit what he said to thee, Edith?”
“Oh, a parcel of stuff touching mine hair and mine eyes, and the like,” said I. “I knew well enough what colours mine hair and eyes were of, without his telling me. Could I dress mine hair every morrow afore the mirror, and not see?”
“Well, Edith,” saith she, “methinks he did not take much of thee. I would I could have seen him,”—and her voice grew sadder. “Not that my voice should have had any potency with him: that had it never yet. But I would fain have noted how far the years had changed him, and if—if there seemed any more hope of his amendment than of old time. There was a time when in all Oxfordshire he was allowed the goodliest man, and I fear he was not far from being likewise the worst.”
Here come in Mother, and my Lady Stafford changed the discourse right quickly. I saw I must say no more. But I am well assured Aunt Joyce’s Mary was never my Lady Stafford. Who methinks it were it should serve no good end to set down.